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The Inscription of Dvenos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Roland G. Kent
Roland G. Kent*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

The archaic Latin inscription known as the Inscription of Duenos, from a word occurring in it which may be a personal name, stands on a small triple jar found in Rome in 1880 and first published by its finder, H. Dressel, apparently in collaboration with F. Bücheier, who also wrote on it. Scholars have been busying themselves with it ever since, until we find the forty-first interpretation in a recent monograph of E. Goldmann of Vienna.

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Type
Research Article
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Language , Volume 2 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1926, pp. 207 - 222

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References

1 Annali dell'Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica 52.158-95 [1880].

2 Rheinishes Museum 36.235–44 [1881].

3 Die Duenos-Inschrift (Indogermanisches Bibliothek III.8), Winter, Heidelberg, 1926. Rich as this volume is in bibliographical references, I fail to find the following items, which might be listed for completeness :

1881: H. Jordan, Bull. dell'Inst. di corr. arch. (Roma) per 1881, 84-5; F. Gamurrini, ib.

85–6; P. K. in T., Correspondenzblatt f. d. Gelehrten- u. Realschulen Württembergs 28. 104–09.

1882: C. G. Cobet, Mnemosyne, new series, 10.239; L. Havet, Revue Critique, n.s., 13.211-12, 220; K. Sittl, d. lok. Verschiedenheiten d. lat. Spr. 34–5, Erlangen; E. G. Sihler, Amer. Journal of Philol. 3.107; B. L. Gildersleeve, ib. 107 n.; C. D. Morris, ib. 146.

1883: M. Bréal, Comptes rendus d. séances de l'Ac. d. Insc. et Belles-Lettres, 4th series, 10.

23–5; W. Deecke, Bursians Jahresber. 28.233–6; H. Jordan, Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 8.11; H. Jordan, Observationes Romanae subsicivae, 8–9, Königsberg; C. D. Morris, AJP 4.116–17; J. R. Wheeler, ib. 354, 360; O. Keller, d. saturn. Vers, 40–2, Leipzig-Prag; F. Ramorino, Riv. di filol. 11.512–18.

1884: W. Deecke, Burs. Jahresb. 32.365–6, 369–71.

1886: L. Ceci, Giorn. ital. di fil. e ling. clas. 1.48–9; I. Zwetaieff. Insc. Italiae inferioris dialectae, 80–3, Moscow-Leipzig; E. Schneider, Dialectorum Italicarum aevi vetustioris exempla selecta 1.1.2–3, Leipzig.

1887: W. Deecke, Burs. Jahresb. 44. 239–40.

1889: R. S. Conway, Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. May 23, 1889.

1890: C. Zander, Versus italici antiqui, 50–1, Lund.

1896: J. C. Egbert, Intr. to Study of Latin Insc. 346–7, New York.

1897: R. von Planta, Gramm, d. osk.-umb. Dialekte, 2.587, Strassburg; W. Deecke, Burs. Jahresb. 87. 21–2.

1906: J. C. Egbert, Supplement to Intr. to Study of Lat. Insc., 494.

1912: H. Ehrlich, Untersuchungen ū. d. Natur d. griech. Betonung, 72, Berlin.

1913: J. E. Sandys, Companion to Latin Studies, 733–4, Cambridge.

1915: W. M. Lindsay, Short Hist. Lat. Gr.2, 199, Oxford.

1916: A. Ernout, Recueil de Textes Latins Archaïques, 7-9, Paris.

1921: F. Hartmann, Glotta, 11. 113.

4 Altitalische Studien 1. 1–57; Hannover.

5 Kuhn's Zeitschrift f. vergl. Sprachforschung 35. 193-212.

6 Amer. Journal of Philology 10. 445–59; cf. also Proc. Cambridge Philol. Soc. May 23, 1889, and Academy 35. 400.

7 Pp. 1–18.

8 Cf. W. M. Lindsay, Short Hist. Latin Gram.2 199; F. Sommer, Handbuch der lat. Laut- und Formenlehre 2-3 413, 533, 594 f.; F. Stolz, Lat. Gram., Laut- und Formenlehre 79, 124, 157; A. Walde, Lat. etym. Wörterbuch 2 s.vv. nisi, vis, invitus.

9 Indogermanische Forschungen 11. 342-3.

10 Mélanges d'arch, et d'hist. (École fr. de Rome) 2. 147–67, esp. 148–9, = Revue Archéologique, new series, 44. 82–98, esp. 83–4 [1882].

11 Mélanges 2. 162= Rev. Arch. 44. 94.

12 Only C. Moratti (Giorn. ital. di fil. e ling. clas. 1. 100-2 [1886]; also La iscrizione arcaica del Foro Romano e altre, Bologna, 1900—this latter not accessible to me)has done great violence to the text; he sees omissions and ligatures almost everywhere.

13 Pp. 19–51.

14 Kleine philolog. Schriften = Opuscula philologica Bergkiana 1.646 [1884].

15 Altitalische Vermuthungen 180, in I. Zwetaieff, Insc. Ital. inf. dial. [1886]; Bursians Jahresbericht 44. 239 [1887].

16 Bücheier, RhM 36. 243; and especially G. Hempl, Trans. Amer. Philol. Assn. 33. 153–4 [1902].

17 R. S. Conway, AJP 10. 452.

18 As indeed Miss F. M. Bennett, Proc. Am. Philol. Assn. 41.xxii [1910], takes it.

19 Cf. the parallels cited by Conway, AJP 10. 454, and the prayers quoted in Cato, Agr. 141 end.

20 KZ 35. 196 [1899].

21 IF 11. 342-3 [1900].

22 M. Jeanneret, La langue des tablettes d'exécration latines 106–7, Paris-Neuchâtel, 1918.

23 Bücheier, RhM 36. 243 [1881].

24 Bücheier, l.c.

25 Cf. P. G. Goidanich, Riv. di storia antica, n.s., 5. 233 [1900].

26 Perhaps such a formation lurks in the deponent imitārī, which may be for ∗in-mitdrī, even as ∗ob-mittere has become omittere; for the meaning, ∗in-mitārī may well mean ‘to let one's self go into (something), to identify one's self with, to imitate’, cf. Plaut: Cas. 443 recessim dabo me ad parietem, imitabor nepam ‘I'll draw off backwards to the wall’, I'll imitate a crab'. Of course, such an etymology of imitārī separates it from aemulus and imāgō.

27 RhM 36. 482-4 [1881].

28 Hermes 16. 233-8 [1881].

29 Hermes 16. 235.

30 Mél. 2. 155=Rev. Arch. 44. 89 [1882].

31 AJP 10. 453 [1889].

32 A. Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae, pp. 5-19, esp. No. 4; Paris, 1904.

33 Short Historical Latin Grammar, ed. 1, 175, Oxford [1897], ed. 2, p. 199 [1915]; Handbook of Latin Inscriptions 19–23, Boston, 1897.

34 TAPA 33. 150–69 [1902].

35 PAPA 41.xxi-xxiv [1910].

36 Op. cit. 193–4 [1904].

37 Cited in C. E. Bennett, Syntax of Early Latin 1. 169, 219, 234, 254, 265, 269; perhaps the examples of pp. 182–4 also are relevant.

38 AJP 10. 455–6.

39 Handbook of Latin Insc. 22.

40 Museo Ital. di antichità classica 1. 175 ff. [1885].

41 AJP 30. 121–38 [1909].

42 Op. cit. 120.

43 Untersuchungen über die Natur der griechischen Betonung 72, Berlin, 1912.

44 Cf. H. Jordan, Hermes 16. 237–8 [1881]; W. Deecke, RhM 37. 385–6 [1882]; W. Schulze, Zur Geschichte lateinischer Eigennamen 423, 519, Berlin, 1904; A. Zimmermann, Philologus 72. 158 [1913].

45 Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 9. 53–4 [1898].

46 L.c.

47 L. c., in note 25.

48 Short Hist. Latin Gram,2 199 [1915].

49 KZ 35. 198.

50 Walde. Lat. etym. Wörth? 520. s.v. unisi.

51 I hold with Ehrlich, Unters. 72–9.

52 Notably Hempl. TAPA 33. 155–7.

53 Beginning with Dressel, Ann. dell'Inst. 52. 180 [1880], and Bücheier, RhM 36. 238 [1881].

54 Cf. the remarks of F. D'Ovidio, Rivista di filologia 10. 118–19 [1882].

55 So H. Osthoff, RhM 36. 486 [1881].

56 Dressel, l.c.; Bücheier, RhM 36. 239; Bréal, Mél. 2. 157 = Rev. Arch. 44. 90 [1882]; etc. It makes no difference in this interpretation whether the forms were thematic or non-thematic. If thematic, then the thematic vowel was lost by syncope; and the change of the vowel from e to o, if preceding the syncope, was analogical to that in the first person, as in colō colis colit, where the original radical vowel was e.

57 In this way the present tense of volō can be derived without having recourse to elements from any other root; yet vīs may represent a contamination with equivalent of Skt. vé i or with the root in invītus. Cf. Walde. Lat. etym. Wrtb.2 s. vv.

58 Hermes 16. 235–6 [1881].

59 Mél. d'Arch. 2. 157 = Rev. Arch. 44. 90 [1882].

60 L. c., in note 45.

61 Kl. philol. Schriften 1. 644–51 [1884].

62 Altital. Vermutungen 180 [1886]; cf. note 15.

63 Citations in note 33.

64 The warrant for this word is the Umbrian pacer ‘propitius’, nom. sg., and pacrer, nom. pl.

65 Cf. F. Sommer, Handb. d. lot. Laut- u. Forment. 2-3 593–4.

66 Handbook of Latin Insc. 20.

67 I am aware that the verb abstō is a very rare word, occurring only in Horace AP 362; for when compounds of ab and ad would become identical in form, it is the compounds of ab which disappear or change their form, cf. apportō and asportō, accīdō and abscīdō, afferō and auferō. I do not therefore insist that the word is to be found in this inscription. The meaning to be conveyed is however reasonably certain.

68 Nodes Atticae 13. 23. 2.

69 I am not unaware of certain etymological difficulties in equating tutus with an earlier ∗toitos; for tütus is the participle of tueor, and the root of tueor is ∗teu- or a similar root with a u-diphthong. But as tuitus is a collateral form of tūtus, the -oi- of TOITESIAI may stand in somewhat the same relation to the -ui- of tuitus as the -oe- of oboediō stands to the -ui- which should have developed by regular weakening in ∗ob-awizdiō.

70 Die Duenos-Insckrift 27-34.